


Paperbacks

by thebasement_archivist



Category: The X-Files
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1999-09-30
Updated: 1999-09-30
Packaged: 2018-11-21 01:50:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11347401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebasement_archivist/pseuds/thebasement_archivist
Summary: Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived atThe Basement, which moved to the AO3 to ensure the stories are always available and so that authors may have complete control of their own works. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address onThe Basement's collection profile.





	Paperbacks

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Basement](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Basement), which moved to the AO3 to ensure the stories are always available and so that authors may have complete control of their own works. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Basement's collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thebasement/profile).

 

Paperbacks by Dreamerlea

Slashx: 30 July 1998  
ArchiveX: 30 July 1998  
Title: Paperbacks  
Author: Dreamerlea   
Classification: You classify it. I don't have the energy or the Freudian ability. NC-17, though, definitely.  
Post-Paper Clip  
For Te, who thinks it's a -great- place to meet guys.

* * *

Paperbacks  
by Dreamerlea

The smell of the shelves was the most comfortable thing he could imagine. Deep in the timeless alleys of books, one could conceive of a sort of haven, a fortress of silence and serenity broken only by the rustle of pages.

He would often come here to sleep. He would lie in bed, sometimes, glistening with cold sweat, and clutch at the blankets with a fear he could not name. He would rush from his little room, run down in the cold, and come in here.

Here, where it was always safe. Here where he could find a dark, dusty corner, and fold his arms up beneath him, and just go. Here, his head resting on the cool, scratched wooden desks that had survived a hundred years of such repose.

Tonight he had chosen the medieval room, as he did when he was truly in need. It was especially silent here, so quiet he could almost hear the bustle of the circulation table, four stories below.

Tonight the fluorescents did little to drown the darkness. It seeped in from the high, narrow windows and crept along the floor in long, sinister shadows. Tonight the clouds hung low over the city and blanketed his room in a murky isolation, further removed from the world. The medieval room seemed even more lost on a night like this. The plastic covers over the chairs spoke not of serenity, but of forgetfulness. Someone had abandoned this place long ago.

Castoffs. That's what we are.

He stood in the center of the high-ceilinged room, as if ready to address the heavens themselves. The roof arched above his head, and he closed his eyes, wishing he could feel the wind circling about the walls, trying to enter his haven, challenge his solidarity.

His solitude.

The lights flickered once, twice, and a loudspeaker crackled. "Attention. It is now 12:45. The library will be closing in fifteen minutes. Please complete your business at the circulation desks."

Good. Alone, in his castle. Left to contemplate his only comfort in these nights. His haunted passion. His accursed...

He would not use that word, not if it killed him.

A rustle of pages, and he whirled around, seeing in his mind only smoke and careless death.

But it was merely a man, a boy really, ostensibly reading, but actually staring at him quite unabashedly.

The boy didn't speak, and Alex found that he couldn't. The slow, familiar pain began in his chest as he stared back at the boy.

Perfect. He's perfect.

Twenty, perhaps, or thereabouts. No younger, surely. And certainly undergrad, with a look of a boy who's gotten a taste of the world and longed for more. Brown hair, in need of a cut, as it was just skimming the border of impeccable and collegiate-frumpy. Tousled from hours of study, it fell roughly over those silver-rimmed glasses that even now made Alex want to groan. Those glasses were just like -his-. Those eyes... those eyes -were- his.

A kaleidoscope of all the colors of the earth, autumn leaves and the stone of the buildings and the afternoon sunlight glinting off of wood, all many facetted and staring at Alex as if he were an intimate acquaintance.

That same impossible nose, and perfect lips, and Alex caught his breath as he completed his examination with those long tapered hands. An artist's hands. -His- hands. 

It would easy to imagine himself slipping through a wormhole that night, presented with some doppleganger of the unfortunate agent. Wrapped in the mist and agelessness of the stone room, whisked off to a Gothic cell somewhere in England where Alex could very well come across an earlier edition, untainted with bitterness and unversed in the strain of battle.

Finally he found the ability to speak. "The library's closing."

The boy nodded, still holding the book open. The way he stood by the shelves was disconcerting, as if hovering there, ephemeral. About to disappear down those narrow tunnels of paper, out of Alex's reach yet again. 

The question tore out of Alex. "Are you leaving?"

The boy smiled then and closed the book, holding his place with one of those perfect fingers. "I wasn't planning to." The voice was gravelly, but still lighter than Alex expected. This boy had not seen what his counterpart had. He was untouched.

Alex did not dare to move from his spot on the floor, and the boy strolled over to one of the thick, cracked leather couches. He stretched himself out and resumed reading the book. Only Alex's careful study revealed that the boy's eyes flickered up at intervals to watch him.

"Attention. It is now 12:50. The library will be closing in ten minutes. The circulation desk is now closed."

The young man did not even appear to have heard the announcement. He turned a page, and yawned. Alex closed his eyes, and listened to the wind whirl about the stones outside.

The storm outside and calm inside.

The storm inside and calm outside.

And the pressure threatened to break him and rush into this vortex of still silence, drowning both himself and the young man who sat so untroubled before him. Did he dare attempt what every molecule in his body was begging for?

"What's your name?" he asked. The boy looked up and opened his mouth to speak, but hesitated. Perhaps he saw the look in Alex's eyes. Perhaps he knew that any connection at all would trap him.

"What's yours?" the boy said.

"Alex." The voice was a whisper. Nothing more than the wind against the stone. Alex watched the boy carefully, and fancied he could almost hear his heartbeat. It was racing.

And did thy tranquil face belie...

"Alex," the boy said, the word on his tongue like a hushed promise. "I can see you've already been through the storm."

Alex looked down at his soaked jacket. It had been a fine shower when he arrived, a dropped veil of mist over the streets.

"Yes," he said, and even as the words passed his lips he wondered if he hadn't misunderstood the statement.

He had already been through the storm.

"I'm fairly drenched myself," the young man continued, still not removing his gaze from Alex. He fingered the collar of the oxford he wore under the navy-blue crewneck sweater. "So I don't see any reason to go out into that again."

But neither is it easy to hide, my friend. Alex licked his lips, and imagined -him- wearing that wool. This was insane. He wasn't in a bar, he wasn't in a club, with pulsing lights and the decadent taste of liquor and ...

The boy pulled off his sweater. Drenched indeed. The shirt stuck to his skin, outlining his entire chest, sticking to the muscles on his shoulder and merely veiling the dark marks of his nipples.

Who was seducing who here?

Alex turned and walked into the stacks, hoping to get control of his body, of his thoughts. Hoping to convince himself of what a very bad idea this would be. He pulled a book of the shelf and flipped through mindlessly. Latin. Of course. Thomas Aquinas. The binding was old and cracked, like the leather on the chairs, like the stones in he wall, like his very mind. These ancient, priceless books. What was their purpose, in this modern age? Why would anyone pay the price for them, when it was so easy to get the common, disposable paperbacks?

The slap of wet fabric against flesh and Alex almost lost control. As it was he tore out of the shelves as if hounded by demons. His jeans were wet, stiff, clinging and rubbing all over his legs, especially in the front.

The young man looked up from where he was wringing out his shirt by a radiator beneath one of the lead-webbed windows. The look he gave Alex was a mystery in itself, direct, but not inviting, open, but not eager.

It was a subtle seduction indeed. The boy simply stood, half-naked, and allowed Alex to devour him with eyes green as the sky in a hurricane.

Alex ran his fingers along the binding of the book in his hand. The leather was warm to the touch from the grip and the friction which Alex, in his frenzy, had placed on it.

The boy wiped excess water off of his neck and returned to the cracked leather couch. He perched on the edge, and leisurely turned the sleeves of his sweater outside-out.

In a flash Alex was upon him, and the boy stopped. Alex smiled as he placed the very tip of the book's binding between his bare shoulder blades and pressed. The boy stiffened at the touch and his mouth opened as Alex, with agonizing slowness, began to draw the book down the younger man's back. So simple, so innocent really, and yet it held an eroticism that Alex could hardly place. The leather and paper hard against the slightly damp flesh of his back, tracing over the line of his spine like the palm of a lover. He had almost reached the waistband of his pants when the boy spoke.

"Stop," he whispered, like a man on a rack.

Alex paused in his descent, and the boy's head turned, and they met eyes. The young man reached out to cup Alex's face in his and the last bubble of resistance popped, and the storm rushed out of Alex to engulf them both.

Mouths against each other so furiously that teeth and tongue and all were sacrificed to the battle. The boy gripped Alex's head and pulled himself up, his legs already half-entwined with the older man's, the telling bulge quite evident as it strained against his pants.

Must remember why they call them bibliophiles, Alex thought gleefully.

Alex pushed him over onto the couch and fell on top of him, perversely satisfied by the grunt the boy made when Alex's weight pressed him further into the leather. 

Their kisses were no less fevered now, but their hands had begun to explore as well. The young man pushed off Alex's wet jacket, and Alex himself whisked off the damp T-shirt, pleased for the moment as he marveled at the glorious sensation of skin on skin. The pants he'd leave, for now. The delicious anticipation and pleasure-pain of the pressure on his cock was more than worth the wait.

"Oh, no," the young man moaned as Alex ground his hips against the man's abdomen. "God, please, stop. No, wait." Alex grinned as the younger man continued in his eloquence. "Oh, God. Yes. Please." The boy had such a beautiful voice, but Alex wanted to hear it raspy with screams.

He trailed his fingers through the sparse hair on the young man's chest and stomach and began to undo the buttons on his pants. Grey boxer briefs. Perfect. He slipped his hands inside.

"No, God. Oh, God. Alex!" the young man cried, his hands coming down out of Alex hair and clenching on the older man's wrists.

Alex smiled down at the younger man and nipped at his earlobes, his neck, his nipples. "Stop?" he asked teasingly, stroking once.

"Oh, no. Please, no. Don't stop," the boy said miserably.

"Of course not," Alex said and continued as the boy writhed beneath him, arching back his head and exposing that perfect, tanned neck. Alex leaned in closer and breathed in his scent. Shampoo, and books, and rain. He nuzzled the young man's neck, and was rewarded as the man's hands clutched Alex's shoulders. He ran kisses all along his throat, small, nibbling kisses, letting his teeth rake lightly over the skin.

"What's... your name?" he hissed into the boy's ear even as let his fingernails trail lightly down his cock.

"Will... William," the young man gasped, his hands once again on Alex's arm, but this time urging him on in his motions. He arched his hips up off the leather, straining for every inch of contact.

William, Alex thought. Perfect. He withdrew his hand, and a look of terror came across the young man's face.

"Don't stop now," he pleaded.

"Oh, William," Alex whispered with a grin of pure desire. "I haven't even begun." He kissed William once on his lust-swollen mouth and scooted down until he lay half off the couch. William let his hands trail over his stomach and rest on the leather of the couch. He was calm, for the moment.

Alex took the rough cotton of the boxer briefs between his teeth and pulled it gently down over the younger man's thighs. The feel of the elastic and grey cotton in his mouth, mixed with that scent was almost too much to bear. He kept tugging until William's cock was free. The young man gasped as Alex ran his tongue slowly up the underside, from base to tip. Alex suppressed a grin and closed his lips over the swollen head.

William raked his fingertips over the leather and his breath came in short gasps as Alex continued his ministrations. Finally, Alex felt that tightening, that small jerk and pulled away.

He drew close to William's ear again and hissed, "No, you can't come yet. I want you inside me when you come." He said it with such vehemence, with such desperation, that he scared even himself.

The boy was breathless, his voice husky and dark with desire. "I don't... have any..."

"I do," Alex said and reached for his jacket. At the same time, William regained enough of his senses to begin undoing Alex's jeans, and Alex gasped as those long, skilled fingers went to work on his own achingly hard cock.

He fell back against the arm of the couch, his legs bent before him and his pants only partway down his thighs. William pressed the advantage, returning some of the attentions Alex had given him.

Alex leaned his head back on the thick leather arm of the sofa and stared at the long, high windows. The storm outside was purple now with electricity, and the wind keened against the stones in the walls. Alex tossed his head from side to side, trying to keep control and separate himself from the feel of the young man's mouth on his cock, of the young man's fingers all over his body. Who do you see before you, Alexei? It's -him-. It's him. Please, please, dammit, it's him.

"No," he said harshly, snapping his head up and meeting the boy's wild eyes. He pulled a condom and some lube out of his pocket and thrust them into William's hands. "Now."

He wriggled out of his jeans and turned around while William got ready. What the hell was taking him so long? He needed to be fucked -now-.

At last, the cool feeling of the lube and those long cool fingers inside him, stretching him, raking lightly over the tissue at the entrance. Teasing.

"Now," he growled, and felt William press his hips forward, felt the head of the young man's cock penetrating him. The boy hesitated again, and Alex almost screamed in frustration.

"Now. Please," he sobbed and William obeyed, thrusting forward again and again until he was fully inside. He paused for a moment, with a self-control Alex couldn't fathom, and Alex reached around with his left arm and grasped William's. He covered the young man's hand with his own and pulled it forward until they reached his cock.

"Touch me," Alex pleaded and William did, allowing Alex to guide his motions, and timing his thrusts to them.

Alex closed his burning eyes then, yielding himself to the feel of the strong hand stroking him, to the man's cock which was even now penetrating him deeper and harder with each thrust. The pressure built more and more, and Alex knew he wouldn't have much longer to wait.

But even through the haze, the tears came, and Alex cursed himself for his obsession. Don't think, he ordered his mind. If you think you'll know how far away he is at this moment. Just feel the length of the man inside you and his skilled fingers that are coaxing out of you the release which you so preciously crave.

A moment later he received it, and even in this release could not hold back the name that burst from his lips.

"Mulder!" he cried, as the spasms shook him to his very core.

The fluorescents stopped humming and the two men were enveloped in darkness. The library was closed.

The young man thrust inside of him twice more, then came himself. He pulled out of Alex carefully and did not speak as he removed the condom and tied it off.

Alex remained half over the side of the sofa, panting heavily. He felt half-drowned in the wake of the moment that had just passed, and could not bear to turn and face his partner. Instead he raised his eyes to the high, vaulted ceilings. The windows slowly came into focus, their lead designs marking black spider-webs across the electric purple sky. He reached for his grey T-shirt and wiped off his chest and the couch.

The room was illuminated for a moment with the silver of a bolt of lightning.

"What a storm," the boy said in a voice which could barely be heard over the thunder.

Conversation now? Alex shook his head, and was glad he couldn't see the boy in the darkness. He leaned forward, trying to find the boy's mouth.

A hand on his chest stopped him. The boy had pulled the wool sweater back on. Alex stopped, narrowed his eyes in the poisoned darkness.

"Again?" the boy asked in a voice tinged with an emotion that made Alex wonder if he had not underestimated his age.

Remember, Alex, you are also far older than you look.

"You need it again, already?" the boy continued.

"It depends," Alex said, teasing. "How long do you need to wait?"

A snort, and William shifted in his seat. Alex could feel the distance between them, could feel William's eyes turned away, focusing on something across the room, perhaps on the lightning that arched across the windows.

"Should one of us leave?" he growled.

"Go ahead," the young man said. Alex snapped and reached for William with both arms, latching on to his shoulders and pushing him back against the couch.

"Listen, kid," he hissed, pressing more than he meant to, "You can go back to your little dorm room any time you want. -You- have nothing to fear."

A flash of lightning and their faces were thrown into stark contrast for a moment, the anger and raw instinct in Alex and the unfulfilled need in the other man's. Alex saw it and relaxed his hold, surprised.

"That's right," William said back and Alex felt it might have been a shout from another man's mouth. "I came here to pick up strangers, and to hell with who they think they're getting it from. And don't call me kid."

Alex drew back slightly, but still didn't release the young man's shoulders. Who was this guy? God, had he walked into a trap?

"Who?" he pushed backwards, but William caught him and didn't allow him to run.

"You've already had your precious Mulder, tonight," William whispered against Alex's mouth. "Now I want you to fuck -me-."

A protest that quickly turned into a moan as Alex learned about the feel of rough wool scraping his nipples. His arms closed about William's waist and he pressed closer on the couch, straddling the younger man's thighs. It was impossibly soon, and yet Alex felt it beginning again, and he knew that it wouldn't be long for the young man either.

William threw his head back and met Alex's eyes with defiance and lust struggling for preeminence. And Alex smiled weakly, for he didn't have the strength to resist, and dipped his head down, his tongue reaching out to taste the sweat which pooled in the hollow of the younger man's throat. He ran his tongue all the way to the boy's collarbone, marveling at how enticing the neck of the sweater was against William's skin. The tan and the muscles so evident, even in the murky storm-light.

He smiled slightly and bit down.

And William threw him back against the couch and launched an attack of his own.

"No control, Alex," he half-whimpered, half-hissed into the older man's mouth. "No control. No mercy. Was that it?"

"Something..." God, but his mouth was wet and hot, and what the hell was he doing with his tongue? "...like..." and his hand on Alex's cock, which was somehow hard again. "That..." Alex finished before his mind ceased forming coherent words and he gave himself up to the sensations that William was pouring on him.

"But Alex," the young man whispered in a voice that could never be Mulder's. "I know something you don't. It's not me that needs to lose control here tonight in the arms of a stranger. It's not me."

And Alex tossed his head back and his eyes pleaded with the stones in the cathedral ceiling not to allow this to happen, not to allow this young man to continue with the onslaught, no matter how much he coveted each brutal caress. The wind howled about his fortress and the sky beyond the windows was cleft in two with forked silver.

William's lips closed gently, oh so gently, over the already swollen, rosy head of his cock and Alex closed his eyes and knew that the young man was right. He wove his fingers through the boy's hair and grasped his skull with both hands, kneading the skin between his fingers in a way that made William smile through his task. William grasped Alex about his hips and scooted him forward across the couch, pulling his hips up to meet his tongue and lips and sliding his hands over the curves of Alex's ass, up to rest on his slim waist. William ran his thumbs over the older man's ribs in slow, lazy circles, and Alex for his part could do nothing but moan.

"That's right, Alex," William said softly. "Moan. Moan for -me-."

"William," Alex gasped, and for the first time, felt sorry for the men he had done this to. Felt sorry even for William, who hadn't let himself be cast off into the storm while Alex pretended it was Mulder before him. Regretted the way he had seduced them until they couldn't help but allow themselves to play proxy for his lost love.

You weren't going to use that word.

"William," he tried again. "Please."

"Yes," William said harshly, squeezing Alex about the waist. "All of it."

And Alex didn't know what he meant until the pressure started building up in him again, and Alex knew what William wanted. But no, he couldn't mistake this man for Mulder, not like this. This man was like making love to lightning itself.

And a second later he groaned and his hips thrust up of their own accord as William took in all of him.

Alex closed his eyes against the sensation, but the grip on his hands was more than enough to let him know what William was trying to say.

Watch me, Alex. Watch and see who it is that makes you come.

But it was too late, and all Alex saw at that moment was explosions of cracked purple fire.

William crept up along Alex's body and kissed him on the mouth and Alex could taste himself on the young man's teeth, on his lips, on his tongue.

"Mine," William said into his mouth. "Mine. It was me."

Alex tried to breathe and failed. "Yours," he agreed.

~~~~~~~~~~~

"Why did he leave you?" William asked later, as they watched the green shadows play across the tapestries. The storm had abated.

Intricacies were not worth mentioning. Of all the people that had cast him away, Mulder's name was not the first that came to mind. "I... killed some people," Alex answered, too tired to care. There was a flicker of reaction, and Alex tried half-heartedly to decide whether the boy wasn't surprised or just didn't believe him.

"That would do it," William answered lightly, confirming Alex's suspicions of the latter. "Guess that rules out Resident Doctor."

"What was your next guess?"

"AWOL Officer."

"Not far off." Alex could never decide later if he had spoken that aloud.

"But what I can't decide is whether you hate him or love him."

Join the club, Alex thought bitterly. Aloud, he said, "What are you, a psych major?"

William shrugged.

Alex snorted. "Figures."

William shifted on the couch, looked at him with those damnable eyes. The leather soughed under his bare skin and Alex knew at once what it would be like to lay beside Mulder for a night, to feel his arms stiff and sore from holding the two of them on the narrow couch. The sounds of them moving against the leather, making love slowly, carefully, knowing how easy it would be to shatter whatever it was that held them to each other, to break apart in the storm again. 

"Figures what?" the other man asked. Words. Damn words, always questioning, seeking.

"Figures that the first thing you'd do is try and peel back my layers. Ever think that they are there for a reason, M-" he cut off before he could speak the rest.

William tilted his head and smiled weakly. "Since you won't talk to me, we might as well not spend our time talking at all, Alex," he said softly, and leaned over, taking the older man's lip between his teeth.

"Hmph," Alex said but William's mouth was too inviting, and his body was too eager to drive all the demons away.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Going already?" he mumbled groggily, barely opening his eyes against the dry leather.

Alex nodded and pulled on his shoes. "I have to," he said, and barely suppressed the bitter laugh. He was turning into a cliche.

The boy chuckled, though. "Take care," he said, his eyes fluttering open once more.

"I'll try," Alex said. He picked up his discarded jacket from the floor. The boy was already half-asleep again. He lay dressed but rumpled on the couch beneath the tapestries. The forgotten copy of Aquinas lay beside him, and Alex smiled in spite of himself. He could almost imagine this boy a medieval acolyte, reading by candlelight and nodding off in his studies. 

And yet, Alex couldn't keep control last night. This was no common copy. No, he was as they all were, and so was in as much peril. The innocent face and the defiant spirit behind it. The need for power. What They wouldn't give for such a faculty, Alex thought, and stopped.

The boy was asleep, or near to, but perhaps he could hear. "Listen to me," he whispered. "I want -you- to take care. Don't be seduced by the promise of silent power. All power is an illusion. Read your books. You'll see. In the end, it doesn't make a difference, William."

It's what he had been told with that pyre of a car when he first balked at their reins. It's what he had tried to tell Mulder with the liberating whisper of a gun.

In the end, nothing makes a difference.

We are all Castoffs.

The End

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That's all. PWP-a-go-go. And it's only because I love Te so very, very much. I hope your birthday was great sweetie...  
Yes, he's named that for a reason. No, it's not the one you all are imagining.  
P.S. Any similarity to any fictional character of another Universe, mortal or Immortal, is purely coincidental. I've never seen the show. Honest Injun, I haven't.


End file.
